


Of Postulates and Properties

by sciencebutch



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, ThorBruce Week, Writing on Skin, and so am i, and thems the facts!, bruce is a nerd, bruce is autistic, this is rushed and dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 13:09:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15558411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencebutch/pseuds/sciencebutch
Summary: Bruce finds comfort in Thor's presence, even if Thor is unconscious.





	Of Postulates and Properties

**Author's Note:**

> uhhh this is very last minute and rushed. i didn't proof read this because i'm gay and can't even read so

               Something went wrong with the mission. Bruce doesn’t know exactly _what_ went wrong because he had been the Other Guy at the time, and his memory always was rather spotty when he was in the passenger seat - all he can ever remember are shapes seen through green-tinted glasses; a world in a viridescent monochrome. And a whole lot of smashing. And roaring. And even more smashing.

               Which is why he was extremely confused to wake up in the middle of nowhere, unconscious god of thunder draped over his (very naked) chest, with nothing but cutoffs (he _never_ wore cutoffs – why did he keep waking up in cutoffs?), a ballpoint pen, and a hammer that he couldn’t wield. It wasn’t the worst situation he’d ever woken up to; at least he had a pen this time.

               The earth gave a bit as Bruce propped himself up on his elbows. He gently nudged Thor off him, who didn’t stir at the movement. Bruce frowned. Trees, swaying and rustling with the wind, stood tall and strong above them, reaching high into the firmament. Dense thickets surrounded the clearing they had wound up in. Wait – scratch that, _crash landed_ in. Broken branches littered the ground around him. The ground was upturned and plants were uprooted. Bruce could only theorize about what happened.

               No use dwelling on it. And by that he means no use obsessively thinking about it and wondering if he hurt or – God forbid – _killed_ anyone while he was the Other Guy or where they were or what happened to Thor or –

               _Breathe, Bruce,_ he thought, shoving all his anxieties into the back of his mind (as he was wont to do) and focusing on the present. He’s had to rough it in the wild a lot, he knows what to do. Besides, there’s a tracking device in the comm Thor’s wearing, so the Avengers should come rescue them soon. They shouldn’t be here too long.

               _God, please don’t let us be here too long._

After giving Thor a brief but thorough checkup (though he feared it wasn’t good enough, because nothing he did ever was. If Thor died because of his incompetence…), Bruce got to work building a fire; anything to keep him busy.

               Thor lay supine as Bruce collected fallen branches. He was still as a flame sparked on a stack of tinder. He did not stir as a fire roared. Even when an ember popped fiercely into the air and singed Thor’s bicep, he did not shift from his spot on the ground.

               Thor didn’t move. _Period_.

               Bruce sat cross-legged on the ground by the fire. He clicked the ballpoint pin rapidly, nervous energy seizing control of his limbs as his knee bounced up and down. He glanced anxiously at Thor and then back to his lap. He looked at Thor. Then back to his lap. He looked down at his pen. Then back at Thor. He bit his lip.

               The shadows got longer as the sun set. Bruce scooted closer to Thor. The point of his pen met the god’s skin. He began writing. When the light from the twilit skies grew dimmed, Bruce depended on the flickering of the fire to illuminate his work.

               Bruce started with the circumference of Thor’s pinky finger. He stuck his tongue out in concentration as he wrote the equation ( _C=2_ _Πr_ ) on his first knuckle. Numbers and symbols began to overtake the god’s hand as Bruce scrawled the amount of energy used when Thor tapped his finger against his knee repeatedly. He calculated the slope of his arteries, the width of his bicep, its muscle mass, how much weight it could lift.

               (He spent a lot of time on Thor’s bicep.)

               Bruce had made it up to Thor’s shoulder, but he hardly hesitated and simply moved on to the next arm. He didn’t stop.

 He didn’t dare stop.

               Bruce had depended on science his entire life. It comforted him; enveloped him in a pocket of hyper-focus where everything else seemed distant; nonexistent. Every dataset, every sequence and variable and control were an escape from reality. He could forget the complexity of his emotions and indulge in apathy. He would much rather solve the equations for string theory than recognize his trauma. That was the Hulk’s job, not his.

                Feelings were irrational; feelings were untrustworthy and could let you down. Numbers, however, numbers didn’t lie.

               He scribbled down how much energy lightning produced on Thor’s palm, he calculated the radius of Thor’s iris, the arc of his eyebrows. He figured out what wavelengths Thor’s voice reached when he had just woken up, when it was so deep Bruce could feel the vibrations in his chest.

               Feelings were nonsensical. Equations _clicked_.

               He wrote down the rate of Thor’s heartbeat and then he scrawled how much faster his was after Thor entered a room. He noted the curvature of Thor’s smile when they met eyes, the low decibel of his voice after he returned to himself from a Hulk out, when he was particularly sensitive to sounds.

               Bruce didn’t need to untangle his emotions to realize that he was in love with Thor. The equations did that all on their own.

He fell asleep while calculating the amount of light reflected in Thor’s eyes when he was excited, and he woke up on the Quinjet, Thor’s ink-stained arms intertwined with his.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr!


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